


Space Between Us

by techieturnover



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Eavesdropping, Fluff, M/M, This is about as fluffy as I get
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-02
Updated: 2011-07-02
Packaged: 2018-02-07 08:06:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,111
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1891581
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/techieturnover/pseuds/techieturnover
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Alternate title: A Drary Prompt Milo Finds in His GoogleDrive</p><p>An outsider's view of just how shit Harry and Draco really are at this relationship thing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Space Between Us

**Author's Note:**

> (Original Post Date: July, 2011)  
> AN: I'm pretty sure I posted this on tumblr after I finished it(since obviously it IS finished) but since I deleted that tumblr and this amused me I might as well post it here. Pretty sure Rory was a beta for this, because the word acicular is most assuredly NOT in my vocabulary.
> 
>  
> 
>   
> **  
> Prompt by Weird-Bird-HeadingNorth: An outsider’s view of a quiet moment between them?  
> **  
> 

It isn’t often that Harry leaves his Floo open. It’s even less often he lets his door go unlocked - fans and reporters have made sure he usually has them both closed as soon as he’s passed through them, a half dozen charms thrown up as habitually as someone else might wipe their feet on the mat. When I first walk into his apartment, therefore, I’m surprised that everything looks relatively intact, and there is no blood on the walls. Someone he knows then. 

And before you say it, I’m not nosy. Harry is my best friend, it’s my responsibility to make sure his unfailing trust hasn’t finally let in one of his crazier fans. Ever since Margaret Attleby, we’ve all been a bit jumpy. There are voices in the parlor, though they’re both too low for me to even make out the genders, although I know one must be Harry. I try to walk softly through the house, and thankfully there are no creaks in the wooden floorboards. As I draw nearer the voices become clearer, and I’m forced to stifle a gasp as I suddenly have to quell both an instinct to smile in relief and the one to run in and punch that slimy bastard in his acicular, uptight, Pureblood face. 

“I’d like to try...us...again.” That’s Malfoy, but his voice sounds different now that I actually listen to it. Gone is the confidence I remember from Hogwarts, or even the few months after the dust had settled when he and Harry had dated before. Now there is only hesitance. I’m not breathing, waiting for Harry’s reply.

“Try what, Draco? Want to see if you can actually break me this time? You have no idea what that did to me.”   
“I think I do actually, Potter,” Draco cuts in, and the old edge is back again. And it only took fifteen seconds for the leopard to regain his spots. There is a flurry and I’m sure Harry has stood up, but they both still again quickly. “I told you I wasn’t any good at this. Caring about people, it’s not what I’m supposed to do.”

“What you’re supposed to-” Harry scoffs, a bitter laugh that I’m not used to hearing from him. “Do you though? Do you really care? Or do you just want to see how deeply you can worm your way into someone’s life; how big of a hole you can leave when you go? I haven’t stopped thinking about us, I couldn’t, because I couldn’t figure out just what I had done that made you leave. But it wasn’t me.

“You have this...thing. This need to be important to people, Draco. You have to be the center of everyone’s world and when you aren’t, you always have to do something to fix that.” My fingernails curl against the side of the wall, I can hear the anger in Harry’s voice, even though it’s low, and quiet. “Well you were the center of my world. You were everything to me, and I really did love you, but you had to test that too. You had to see just how far you could push me before I didn’t want to be around you anymore, so that you could prove to yourself that love doesn’t exist, and go on in your own little world believing that it was ok for you to be a bastard, because everyone else was too. Well congratulations you’ve done it. Now sod the hell off.”

A shaky breath is drawn in the silence, I’m not sure whose it is. “No.” Malfoy’s then, I can hear the strain in his voice. “I-” More silence, furniture dipping under the weight of someone sitting. It’s minutes before Malfoy speaks again, and when he does, it’s so quiet I almost miss it. “I need this.” 

“I need you to ground me. You’re the only person who’s ever had the balls to tell me what I can do with myself, Potter, and I need that. I need someone to tell me I’m a fucking self-centered, crazy twat who’s gone and ruined the best thing that ever happened to him, because, honestly? And this stays between you and me, Potter. I wouldn’t mind being wrong just this once.” When there is another long fit of silence I consider casting a Disillusionment charm on myself so I can see what is really going on between them, but as unkindly as Harry would take to even his best friend spying on him around the corridor, at least for now I can still say I just arrived. The door was open after all.

“How many more times are you going to run away from this?”

“Hundreds,” is Malfoy’s immediate reply, and Harry’s soft snort covers up my own sound of un-surprise. “I told you,” he continues adamantly. “I’m shit at this.”

“Isn’t that the fucking statement of the year,” Harry concludes, but there’s less bitterness than before.

“Don’t make me beg, Potter.”

“Dunno, I think it might do you some good.” He’s given in, and I could almost kill him for it. When he starts grinning, I can hear it in his voice, that’s when you can always tell that Harry Potter has already agreed to whatever it is you’re proposing. I can’t take it anymore, and I cast a quick Disillusionment and step into the parlor, where Malfoy is sitting and Harry is standing in front of him. They’re both looking more than a bit peaky, tired and pale - for Malfoy it is an accomplishment that he looks even more pallid than usual - but they’re both smiling, and I resign myself to the fact that I will just have to wait until the git leaves again to try and get Harry to see sense. Suddenly Harry has slid down into Malfoy’s lap, and their lips touch softly. I’m puzzled at that until I realize that it’s Malfoy’s way of apologizing, that just like Harry, he’s rubbish at apologizing. The kiss turns more urgent as the seconds pass, and it’s when hands start untucking shirts and moans replace words that I decide I really can come back later to talk to Harry alone. I slip as quietly as I can back through the front hall, cataloging what I can and cannot reveal I know when I talk to Harry later.

“Hermione, shut the door on your way out, yeah?” I freeze and turn. Surely they couldn’t - 

“Yes, Granger, wouldn’t want to invite any eavesdropping for this conversation.”

There is something that sounds distinctly like a moan mixed with laughter, and I resolve to never lurk about in my friend’s houses again.


End file.
